Research Round-up – March 2020 – A/Prof Julia Brotherton

Dr Kristi Milley spoke to Associate Professor Julia Brotherton who is Medical Director of the Victorian Cancer Service’s Population Health and a member of the WHO Director General’s Expert Advisory Group on Cervical Cancer Elimination. Julia is the senior author on a new publication in Plos One titled – ‘Implementation of Australia’s renewed cervical screening program: Preparedness of general practitioners and nurses’.

Australia has recently implemented changes in their cervical screening program – going from screening women with a pap test from 20-69 years of age every two years – to a HPV test for women from 25-69 years every five years. Due to the sensitivity and accuracy of the HPV test it is predicted it will reduce incidence and mortality of cervical cancer by a further 20-30% in Australia. Julia discusses the challenges faced by practitioners in changing this test as it has been in place since 1991 – In particular being confident in reassuring their patients with the longer wait time between screening. Julia also highlights a key advantage with the new program in that for the first time women who meet certain criteria will be able to use self collection in HPV testing.

Reference

Sultana et al. (2020) Implementation of Australia’s renewed cervical screening program: Preparedness of general practitioners and nurses. PLoS ONE 15(1): e0228042.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228042